North Country Blues - Music

Frogtoon Music - Song Info: North Country Blues

Bob-Dylan - The Times They Are A-Changin'

"North Country Blues" Is A Song By Bob Dylan Released On His 3rd Studio Album The Times They Are A-Changin' In 1964. He Also Performed It At The 1964 Newport Folk Festival.
Its Apparently Simple Format Ten Verses Of ABCB Rhyme Scheme And Subject Matter The Run Down Of A Mining Community Appears Influenced By Woody Guthrie.
The Song Opens With A Deliberately Conventional Opening Come Gather Round Friends And I'll Tell You A Tale... .
Each Verse Contains At Least One Tragic Event And Dylan Hides The Fact That The Narrator Is A Woman To The End Of Verse 4 And My School It Was Cut As I Quit In The Spring To Marry John Thomas A Miner. The Song Ends Bleakly My Children Will Go As Soon As They Grow For There Ain't Nothing Here Now To Hold Them .
Within This Apparently Restricting And Morose Format Referred To As A "formally Conservative Exercise In First-Person Narrative" Dylan Manages To Achieve Significant Tonal And Expressive Variation And The Song Is Considered By Some To Be One Of His Most Effective In The 'folk-Song' Genre.
In 1968 Joan Baez Included A Cover Of "North Country Blues" On Her Dylan Tribute Album Any Day Now.